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The Communicator
'' |image= |series= |production=40358-034/208 |producer(s)= |story= Rick Berman and Brannon Braga |script= André Bormanis |director= James Contner |imdbref=0572251 |guests=Francis Guinan as General Gosis, Tim Kelleher as Lieutenant Pell, Dennis Cockrum as Alien Barkeep, Brian Reddy as Doctor Temec and Jason Waters as Alien Soldier |previous_production=The Seventh |next_production=Singularity |episode=ENT S02E08 |airdate=13 November 2002 |previous_release=The Seventh |next_release=Singularity |story_date(s)=Unknown (2152) |previous_story=The Seventh |next_story=Singularity }} =Summary= After returning from an exploratory away mission to a pre-warp society on the brink of war, Lieutenant Reed is unable to locate his communicator. A search of the shuttle bay area proves fruitless, so Captain Archer and Reed return to the planet to try to find it, so as not to leave a contaminant within the culture. Unfortunately, they then manage to walk into a trap set by the local military, who have already found the communicator. With their capture, the local commander, General Gosis, also possesses 'contaminant' scanners and a phase pistol as well. Becoming desperate to locate the away team, Sub-Commander T'Pol's attempt at contact actually divulges the Captain's identity, and Archer and Reed are physically interrogated. After a mild beating, it is discovered that not only are Archer’s and Reed's forehead morphology not the same as the locals', but they also have iron-based red blood, and vastly different internal organs. In response, Archer and Reed improvise a story about being genetically-altered prototypes (with prototype equipment) from an opposing faction known as the Alliance. While allaying suspicion that they are aliens, the military commander decides to hang Archer and Reed so that autopsies can be performed to discover more about their "enhancements". Meanwhile, on Enterprise, a rescue mission is planned by Commander Tucker using the captured Suliban cell ship, but problems arise with its cloak. In their cell, Archer and Reed contemplate the irony of their adherence to an early version of Starfleet's Prime Directive. As they are about to be hanged, the cloaked Suliban ship with T'Pol, Tucker, and Ensign Mayweather arrives, enabling Archer and Reed to escape with their shuttle-pod and captured technology. Later, back on Enterprise, Archer reflects on the consequences of their actions even in the absence of foreign artifacts, and T'Pol is impressed that Archer was willing to sacrifice himself in the line of duty. =Errors and Explanations= Plot Holes # Why were all the devices taken away from Archer and Reed kept in the general's office, located next to the execution yard, from where they could be retrieved much too easily? The Generals office was – presumably – kept under guard, and therefore more secure than a storeroom.. # Why does the general want to execute Archer and Reed so quickly, without even attempting to find out the whereabouts of their alleged secret aircraft.? He obviously thinks keeping them alive is more trouble than it is worth! IMDB Incorrectly regarded as goofs # Having beamed a communicator into a prison for Archer previously, no one even suggests beaming out the communicator this time. (IMDB) It was explained that the exact location of the communicator was unknown and unable to be located on sensors which explains why it couldn't be beamed back. Nit Central # Spockania on Wednesday, November 13, 2002 - 6:29 pm: Technological oddity of the week: The inability to locate the communicator with pinpoint accuracy. Why? They can beam it up, right? Why not call it? Even if it just vanished, surely the risk would be less than leaving it behind, I'd think. In fact, what happened to the transporter? The construction of the buildings could inhibit the effective use of the transporter, especially one as relatively primitive as the unit on Enterprise. # Spockania on Wednesday, November 13, 2002 - 6:38 pm: What happened to stun setting? The first time they fire the phase pistol they get sparks. They fire again and get MORE sparks and a big bang! LUIGI NOVI on Wednesday, November 13, 2002 - 9:38 pm: So the first setting was the stun. What’s the problem? Something only powerful enough to stun could certainly produce sparks. # A "coherent energy beam"? If you lived, say, circa 1950, wouldn't you call it a "ray gun"? LUIGI NOVI on Wednesday, November 13, 2002 - 9:38 pm: Not necessarily. A laser is coherent light, and is a term which would be used by scientists or the military. "Ray gun" sounds like a term you hear in science fiction. # Sparrow47 on Wednesday, November 13, 2002 - 7:11 pm: The Suliban pod apparently had a warp drive! Really? How in the world could it (okay, so we knew this before, but it just clicked with me)? Yet more proof that there's some sort of "fuel" driven warp drive out there that the creators aren't going to bother to tell us about. LUIGI NOVI on Wednesday, November 13, 2002 - 9:38 pm: Why is this a problem? TNG-era shuttles have warp.Sparrow47 on Thursday, November 14, 2002 - 5:35 pm: True, and I never understood how that worked, either. In the TOS era, shuttles used "fuel" which was never actually described, but it worked for both warp and impulse (see The Menagerie and The Galileo Seven). This made a whole lot of sense to me, because warp engines are big, or at least the matter/anti-matter types we see on ships like Enterprise are. They really shouldn't be able to fit! And the pod ship is even more embelematic of this problem- the cockpit is the entire ship! Where is the room for a warp drive? LUIGI NOVI on Thursday, November 14, 2002 - 8:54 pm: Since a shuttle is so much smaller, why can’t it have a scaled-down warp core? I figured it was under the passenger cabin.Seniram 10:32, October 20, 2018 (UTC) The cell ship could have some form of micro miniaturised warp drive embedded in the hull or under the pilot’s chair! # Oh, and when Reed and Archer are in the cell before they get led to the gallows, Reed at first was displaying his characteristic fatalism, but later in the scene, it was "I still expect to be rescued." Either he's started to gain some optimism, or the writers fell asleep at the switch. LUIGI NOVI on Wednesday, November 13, 2002 - 9:38 pm: Or he was displaying normal human conflictedness.Sparrow47 on Thursday, November 14, 2002 - 5:35 pm: Then why couldn't he be conflicted in his previous near-death experiences? Previously he's been entirely "well, this is it, I'm going to die." Why has he changed? Daroga on Thursday, November 14, 2002 - 7:03 pm: Maybe he learned from those experiences? LUIGI NOVI on Thursday, November 14, 2002 - 8:54 pm: Who says he has? Why do you assume that human behavior is governed by such one-dimensional personalities? One might be fatalistic one day, and not the next. It’s normal. Moods, different situations, changes in health or temperament day to day, or just the way humans sometimes normally shift or vacillate in their behavior can account for this. # SMT on Wednesday, November 13, 2002 - 7:30 pm: As T'Pol was trying to hail Archer, calling "T'Pol to Captain", I was thinking it would be smarter for her to call him "Archer", so if she were overheard, it would cause less awkwardness. Sure enough, it got Archer in even worse trouble than before. As if a Vulcan of that era woule ever be that informal with a human, especially one that outranked them! # Pretty roomy for a cell. It was probably designed for holding multiple prisoners, and to be easily watched over by fewer guards. # And here, of course, is the Inter-Continental Ballistic Nit of the evening. If you know where your officers are being held captive, BEAM THEM UP! A simple disappearance seems much less likely to contaminate this culture, which everyone is so worried about. The transporter beam might not be able tp penetrate the structure of the building. # roger on Wednesday, November 13, 2002 - 7:43 pm: Yawn. There was nothing original or imaginative in this episode. The aliens acted like any other "bad guys who capture the heros" in any war movie. When the alien doctor suggests doing an autopsy, he doesn't even grin fiendishly. They just go through the same usual motions any other bad guys do. Sparrow47 on Wednesday, November 13, 2002 - 7:52 pm: Actually, the first time Archer and Reed were questioned, after not answering a question, the aliens made these nodding motions that made me think they were about to smack our heroes around some... but they didn't. That was odd. # For once why couldn't they be captured by civilians, or very low-ranking soldiers? Sparrow47 on Wednesday, November 13, 2002 - 7:52 pm: Well, that has happened before, in Future's End Part 2 (VOY). And it was a lot of fun! They should do it again! # At the end why didn't they use a knockout gas to put everybody to sleep then do the rescue? There was too great a risk of the gas causing a severe reaction with the physiology of the local population. # At the end when Archer runs off to get the rest of the equipment, nobody was guarding it? Sparrow47 on Wednesday, November 13, 2002 - 7:52 pm: Two guards were guarding it; Archer shot them both. # Reed says in the teaser that his visit to the planet was his first visit to a pre-warp culture. Do the Novans from Terra Nova not count? Or are they not considered a pre-warp culture because they were descended from human immigrants? Josh M on Wednesday, November 13, 2002 - 10:47 pm: I doubt that Reed is counting them. After all, they did get there with warp drive and the old woman was with them when they did.LUIGI NOVI on Thursday, November 14, 2002 - 12:35 am: True. But they don’t have warp drive anymore, and to all intents and purposes, were reduced back to a Stone Age culture. Archer and T’Pol even spoke of them as a separate culture that would be destroyed if they were returned to Earth. But yeah, I wouldn’t consider this a solid nit, since the Novans did not originate independently of Earth, and how Reed personally categorizes them is up to him. :) # If these aliens’ blood isn’t red, as Lt. Pell first indicates in Act 2, why does Gosis have such a ruddy complexion? Josh M on Wednesday, November 13, 2002 - 10:47 pm: Skin pigment? Maybe they have bright pink blood :) # Travis says during this scene that it would be nice to have a button marked, "Cloak." Why haven’t they gotten Hoshi to translate everything in that cell ship? Josh M on Wednesday, November 13, 2002 - 10:47 pm: Perhaps it's not labeled with words. Or it's coded (color coded?), you know, just in case these things fall into the wrong hands.LUIGI NOVI on Thursday, November 14, 2002 - 12:35 am: And who said that Hoshi is only good with words? A talent for deciphering languages as fast as she can is essentially one of pattern recognition, which isn’t specific to written words. I seem to recall her mentioning in an episode (Perhaps Vox Sola) about seeing a certain language (IIRC, the Fettucini Alfredo creature in that ep) as a set of mathematical values. # Josh M on Wednesday, November 13, 2002 - 10:25 pm: Why didn't the Suliban take their ship when they took over the ship in Shockwave? Was it hidden? Where could the Enterprise hide it and shield it from Suliban sensors? Dragon on Thursday, November 14, 2002 - 7:29 pm: Maybe it never occurred to them that Enterprise would ever really escape. Silik thought he had Enterprise and her crew securely in hand, so they didn't bother removing their cell-ship. # ClaytonRumley on Wednesday, November 13, 2002 - 11:17 pm: Um...maybe I'm missing something, but in the end of Shockwave Part 2, Archer has Silik hostage in the cell ship. He says they'll be long gone before Silik wakes up. Then they fly off into the sunset. My impression was that they were leaving Silik behind in the cell ship, Archer would board Enterprise and they'd take off. But now it would seem that they kept the cell ship. What happened to Silik? Did they arrest him? Did they drop him off in space? Or was there another cell ship on Enterprise besides the one that Archer escaped in? LUIGI NOVI on Thursday, November 14, 2002 - 12:35 am: The one they snatched in Broken Bow. # Trike on Thursday, November 14, 2002 - 12:09 am: T'Pol ordered Hoshi to search for human biosigns. Even though T'Pol was in command at the time, she clearly is the most qualified to do that job the fastest. LUIGI NOVI on Thursday, November 14, 2002 - 12:35 am: How so? Josh M on Tuesday, November 19, 2002 - 10:10 pm: She is the science officer and does seem to do most of the scanning for lifeforms. However, I doubt that it is that hard of a job and I'm guessing that Hoshi is well qualified for it. # I love it how on "Star Trek" the prisoners are never separated. Archer and Reed were put in the same cell and questioned together. Why doesn't it occur to the aliens to separate them and question them individually so you can locate holes in their stories? They may not have enough guards for that. # I'm still trying to figure out how the Suliban pod got inside the compound. LUIGI NOVI on Thursday, November 14, 2002 - 12:35 am: Archer and Reed were being executed in an open yard. You can see the open area in the establishing shot of the complex in Act 2. =Notes= Category:EpisodesCategory:Enterprise